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- [00:00]
Craig Dubitsky
Your job inside of those companies was just not to screw things up. It kills this, it eliminates that, it destroys this. And everything in the category seemed about fear and shame. Every brand seemed to have an extracted tooth, which made just no sense to me.
- [00:13]
Podcast Host
Craig Nubisky is the entrepreneur behind some of the most disruptive consumer brands of the past two decades. From being the first investor in Method to building and selling hello products to Colgate Palmolive, he has repeatedly transformed everyday household items into beloved brands. Now he's co founded Happy with one of the biggest movie stars in the world, Robert Downey Jr. Setting his sights on copy.
- [00:34]
Craig Dubitsky
If you overanalyze, you're going to miss some things. You create things that people don't buy, you don't sell to them. You create something that they join. I love the idea of innovation. To me, emotional innovation is the thing. Mental health does not care where you were born, what your native tongue is, how many commas you do or do not have in your bank account. It impacts everybody.
- [00:54]
Interviewer
Foreign. It does. It's legit. It's official.
- [01:03]
Podcast Host
We're here, Craig.
- [01:04]
Craig Dubitsky
Right? I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it.
- [01:05]
Interviewer
It's Friday. You should be feeling it. How are you doing?
- [01:10]
Craig Dubitsky
Thank you so much for asking and thank you for having me. I'm doing, I'm doing swell, as they would say in yesteryear, you know, life is good every day on the right side of the dirt and being in the caffeine game. What do I have to complain about? We're called happy. Come on. I got no complaints. You're, you're.
- [01:26]
Interviewer
Yeah, exactly. You're in the caffeine game. It's, it's a pick me up, right?
- [01:30]
Craig Dubitsky
All the time. It's great.
- [01:32]
Interviewer
I love it. Let's go through it really quick.
- [01:33]
Podcast Host
You, you've reinvented soap, lip balm, toothpaste,
- [01:37]
Interviewer
and now you're reinventing coffee. These are categories that were, these are categories that have billion dollar incumbents and have been dominated for decades. But you seem to pick in terms of your categories, in terms of what you want to build or be an early investor in the. The most entrenched categories. It seems like on purpose, what do
- [01:58]
Podcast Host
you talk, talk to me a little
- [01:59]
Interviewer
bit about what you see in a category and you think, this is the one. This is a pro. This is where I can compete. And a product that I want to build in versus, Gosh, this is actually impossible.
- [02:10]
Craig Dubitsky
Wow. Well, people, I've heard people say, you know, you're in these commodity spaces. I love words or Wordplay, by the way. I don't think I've ever thought of this until right now. But you know, commodity, it's like common and oddity put together, right? It's like, how could you be common and be an oddity at the same time? So I love these everyday things because they're kind of irrefutable. They're everyday for a reason. They're. They're common, which sounds like such a negative term, you know, like how common. Like that's pedestrian and it's basic. I think common is magical. Common is the stuff that binds us together. It makes everybody, you know, a part of something much bigger to be, to be common. I actually think it's more uncommon to be common these days because people seem to be fighting with each other quite a bit. Anyway, that aside, I love these everyday categories. I love everyday items because I think you can, if you're lucky, create or meet people, invest in things that folks get to use every day and what a treat. So I love art and design and the idea that you could take something that people use, live with, have to use and turn a have to into a want to because of some extra bit of thoughtfulness. That's really, that's really cool. And what ends up happening, I think is the word used incumbents. Those companies were started by people that I think thought that way a long time ago. And then as those companies grew and grew and grew, added more people, added complexity, added SKUs had to elbow people off the shelves whatever they needed to do. Um, your job inside of those companies was just not to screw things up. You know, that was your, your job. And if you mess something up at scale, that's, that's pretty scary, right? Understandable. By the way. I, I hope, I hope we come across right now as not being critical of big companies. I think they're incredible to run an organization, enterprise, that's unbelievable. Anyway, all that said, and I'm going to put my, my noise here on, on Paul, so no one bugs us here. I'm going to put it in silent mode if I can figure out how to do that. Anyway, now I lost my whole train of thought about calm and why I like these things. I like these everyday things because they touch so many people. And that to me is where the magic lies. So taking the everyday and making it awesome because you're thoughtful to me. That's, that's great. Oh, this is where I was going about incumbents. I was for about incumbents, right? That's it. That's it. Incumbents you know, we, as startup people, we have no layers and no legacy. Gives us a clean slate. All the euphemisms coming out in one podcast. Right? Clean slate. That's a beautiful thing. It's a scary thing sometimes, but I think it's a gift. So we can approach categories with a different mindset because there's no legacy to protect. There's no heritage we have to worry about in terms of the brand or overhang. We get to just think differently about things. That's great.
- [05:07]
Interviewer
Totally, totally. How do you know, analyze a specific category if you actually want to build a con. A. A company in that category and see if there is an opportunity to compete and maybe bring a sense of beauty to that category that maybe you thought didn't exist before.
- [05:26]
Craig Dubitsky
This may sound maybe a little juvenile, maybe a little unprofessional, maybe a little unpolished, but for me, a lot of this stuff that I've been lucky enough to be around, GUT is. GUT is the driver. You know, if you were to rationalize everything, you probably wouldn't move forward. And I will tell you this. When I was very early on working with the founders of Method, Adam and Eric, I went to everybody I knew in venture and private equity at the time to talk about investing alongside. And everyone looked at me like I had eight heads, you know, because they were just looking at it rationally and saying, well, there's already cleaning products. Who cares about cleaning products? So if you, if you overanalyze, you're going to miss some things. There's a lot to be said for gut, and I find, as much as I love data, because I really do love data, depending on how you're interpreting the data, looking at the data, and when you are actually accumulating that data, it may tell you where you've been and not necessarily where you need to go. You know, it's like the rocket ship doesn't have rear view mirrors, it has a window in the front. Um, you can't really, like, look behind you and off to the sides, you can just look what's ahead of you. So I wish I could tell you, oh, yeah, there's a, a playbook. This is exactly how you do it. The, the, the things that worked were, for me, with, hello, as an example, oral care brand that I was part of. That whole idea didn't come from analyzing the marketplace. And let's, let's put a grid together and figure out where there's a, a space to. In the top right quadrant. And we've, we've labeled the axes a certain way, and let's plot it out. It literally hit me by walking through a store, inadvertently walking through the store. I wasn't there to analyze the oral care space, and I saw pictures of extracted teeth on all these different products. In fact, here's a box of one right now. You know, I saw that on everything. Like, every brand seemed to have an extracted tooth, which made just no sense to me. Forget about the aesthetic aspect of seeing a highly stylized extracted tooth. Okay. But it just didn't seem to sit well with me because I thought the whole point of those products that I was looking at were to keep the teeth in my mouth. And yet there are all these pictures of teeth with their roots dangling, you know, hanging out, and it just seemed very counterintuitive. It's sometimes it's just really basic, basic things like that. You know, EOS came about in a pretty similar way, too. It's, I think, just having a very practical mindset and keeping your eyes open. And if you do, the answers are typically right there in front of you.
- [08:04]
Interviewer
Yeah, that makes. That's really helpful. I remember when we were talking previously, you were talking about one of your friends who is very successful, and he pitched you, like, ideas and ideas about different things, and you kept saying, no, like, that won't work. And, you know, no, not really that really interested in things. What. When you.
- [08:21]
Craig Dubitsky
By the way, I was much nicer about it because I, I never, I'm, you know, it's like, I don't want to ever bring an umbrella to the brainstorm. You know, I want us to all get doused together. But yeah, I was nice about it, but I, I explained to. To this person. Yeah. Some of these ideas I thought were not necessarily going to work for a whole bunch of reasons. But yeah, keep, keep.
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Podcast Host
But, yeah, no, like, but, but.
- [08:41]
Interviewer
But I'm kind of curious because it seems like also you, you as well have this mindset of there's opportunity everywhere, Right? Oh, yeah. So. So how do you. How do you decide in terms of, like, why something you don't think wouldn't work? Is it more so that you are just not kind of amped up and excited about that opportunity or you actually don't think that that opportunity is a real opportunity?
- [09:06]
Craig Dubitsky
It's a great question. I think it's. I think it's a combination is like wussy response is that maybe usually if I'm not fired up, there's a reason why. So I have to listen to that inner voice and be like, okay, why would I say no to that. And by the way, I haven't learned to say no. I didn't learn to say no until, like, basically a few years ago. I always used to say I'm in the yes business, and I would say yes to everything. And then I realized, oh, time is fleeting, and I can't say yes to everything because I do think everything is an opportunity. I think everything is ripe for debate. It doesn't matter if it's a. I'm looking at my desk. A chip clip to keep your bag of potato chips closed. Really? That doesn't do squat. Doesn't keep air from really getting in there. Like, it's shitty design. You know, are there better ways to make coffee mugs? Like, if I put my fingers in this handle, you know, the hot mug is still going to be touching the backside of my fingers. It's going to burn. It's going to feel like crap. Like, it's just there's bad design everywhere. So I want to say yes to everything, but I'm realizing as I get a little off, like, all right, what's going to take the right amount of time to actually create something that's going to be better and get into the marketplace for the largest number of people? And is the juice worth the squeeze, as the expression goes? So just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Some entrepreneur I was out with last night, I won't share too much because I obviously always want to be respectful and not sound like I'm negative. But this particular entrepreneur had realized an exit. So good for him. He had some financial means, and he leads a very active outdoor lifestyle and pitched me on this idea to create a very, very specific set of pro products that would be really just for him and his dream of doing this outdoor activity that he likes. And I was like, dude, I love it. And I love that you're passionate about it, and I love that you've identified something that would make you really happy. That's awesome. That's kind of a hobby versus a business sometimes. And I was like, so let's talk about it. How would you make it? What would it cost? What would you be solving for? How would you practically bring that product to, like, with you doing this outdoor activity that you love, there's seasonality involved. So there's, you know, nine months out of the year where you wouldn't be selling anything. Like, how do you have a business where for nine months out of the year, you're not selling anything? You know, there were all these things to contemplate. So I was basically saying, look, if you want to do it because it's a love project and you love it, and you think you and the people that you do this outdoor activity with or like this unique marketplace, great. It all depends what your expectations are. If it's just the drive for wanting to build something that's great for a unique group of people and their needs, state, that's awesome. And sometimes that can become a business, Other times it's just a cool thing and you do it for yourself. And there's no wrong to that. It all depends. If you take capital from somebody else for a hobby, that's a little tricky because usually investors want a return on their capital, not to be along for the ride with your hobby. So again, there are a lot of things that make me think, okay, is that something I want to pursue? Is that something to pass on? Is there any way to return capital if I need to make an investment? If I don't need to make an investment, Is it worth the time? Is it going to impact enough people along the way? So there's a lot of little decision points, but it usually all hits me really fast because some of these decision points are relatively obvious. If you're constantly looking through the lens of, is this a business, Is this a brand in the making, Is there a unique product offering that people could fall in love with? And once you're constantly thinking through those types of questions all the time, the answers usually become very immediate. When you see things because you have a set of criteria that you're living by not just analyzing, and that provides speed and clarity, which is a benefit when you're an entrepreneur.
- [12:59]
Interviewer
So, so given that framework, how then, when you're analyzing which businesses to start thinking about customer set and audience meaning, are you building maybe more so for the mass market, or there's, or there's a ton of kind of customer set customers, you think for the product, or are you building like more of a, a premium product that might be a bit more exclusive or in a certain niche, like, is there kind of a preference or, or how do you kind of think about those things?
- [13:27]
Craig Dubitsky
I. Going back to where we started and that word commodity and common, I, I like the positive definition of common as in shared. And because I like things that are shared, I love having products that can play in the quote unquote, mass market. I, I love that. I don't like the idea of exclusive or rare. It's not because I don't appreciate things that are rare. We have a coffee we just launched. That's incredibly rare. We bought all the beans from this one grower. It's a tiny micro lot. It's really, really rare. There are these incredible beans and they're really larger in physical size and they're truly rare. So I appreciate that. But we're trying to bring that and other products to the largest number of people we can. And I think that's a really. I don't want to sound haughty about it, but I think it's kind of a noble pursuit to figure out how to make better things, source better things. Whether better is defined as more beautiful, more ecologically friendly, more thoughtfully produced. Define better any way you want. Nicer design, more thoughtful, considered design and make those available to more people. I think that's really kind of a cool thing. So I like to find opportunities that can appeal to the largest number of people. And I feel that because of the worldwide interwebs, podcasting, television, you know, media in general, things that used to happen in sort of the echelons of high end are becoming massified very, very quickly. And that's been going on for a while, right? Fast fashion is kind of like that. There'd be these exclusive designs going down the red carpet and boom, the next day they'd be available, you know, at like a Zara or something, or Target or Walmart or the Gap. I think that's really awesome. Personally.
- [15:23]
Interviewer
That's great. No, I, I really appreciate that response. When you think about opportunity, for example, you pointed out Colgate and how that kind of inspired you in some ways too for, for hello. Which is also just hilarious because of course hello gets acquired by Colgate. So, so this is great. But the. But I'm kind of curious if you find when you dive into, since you've, you know, started quite a few successful businesses, do you find that what, what gets you excited about an opportunity or seen opportunity is first seen from the marketing side and in the, in the Colgate example, seeing how the packaging was and how that didn't make a lot of sense versus looking at it from like the product perspective of you know what we can like create a, a premium product.
- [16:13]
Podcast Host
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- [17:07]
Craig Dubitsky
Well, first, just for extra clarity and I promise I am not legally obligated to say this, the first product I saw with the extracted teeth wasn't a Colgate product. It was another major brand. So I literally had seen across the three biggest oral care brands, extracted teeth on all of them. So I don't want to, I don't want to single out and pick on Colgate. No, no, please don't be sorry. They just happen to have an extracted tooth that I happen to have next to me over here at my desk. But. So extracted teeth were everywhere. What. Also the risk of sounding incredibly over. Over simplistic here, but the thing that I usually start with is there's, there's a category. Just it doesn't even matter what it is, right? Could be it doesn't matter. Pick. Pick anything. I usually start with what the thing is called because I love names and naming and I say this all the time. I love names and naming. Probably because I have such a crappy name like Craig Dubitsky. Like what a shit name is that?
- [18:03]
Interviewer
That's a great name.
- [18:03]
Craig Dubitsky
Anyway. Oh, you're very kind.
- [18:05]
Interviewer
Cd.
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Podcast Host
It's cd.
- [18:06]
Craig Dubitsky
Cd. Cd, Right. Certificate of deposit. Compact disc.
- [18:10]
Interviewer
Yeah, compact disc. And you're a music guy, you know,
- [18:12]
Craig Dubitsky
and where are they and where are. Compact District. So yeah, it's.
- [18:16]
Podcast Host
I didn't name it like that.
- [18:17]
Craig Dubitsky
No, no, no, no, no, no, I know you didn't. But anyway, it's a bad name. So I love names and naming because if you get it right, there's an immediacy. There's again going back to this idea of common as being uncommon because you can create connectivity at scale, which is so cool. So if you have a really cool name, cool meaning differentiated compared to the rest of the category, but emotionally charged and able to kind of short circuit the noise. It's really powerful. So in a world of oral care as it existed, you know, X number of years ago, to have a brand called hello. People say, where did that come from? And I said, well, you know, I looked around and always extracted teeth. And all the claims on the packaging and the products and everything was like, it kills this, it eliminates that, it destroys this. And everything in the category seemed about fear and shame. You know, if you weren't whitening, you were frightening, if your breath didn't smell like, you know, whatever minty thing you could think of, you weren't going to get kissed and you wouldn't get the job. Everything was designed to scare you. The dentist was going to scare you. So I thought, I thought you use this stuff so that you can smile and you'll be, you know, bright and kind of, you know, pleasant and excited. And what was the friendliest word I could think of? It was in a category that seemed very unfriendly because everything was fighting, killing, eliminating and destroying. I'm like, what's the friendliest word I could think of? And it was hello. So trademarking hello in a category that spoke to killing, eliminating, fighting, destroying, that was, that alone was such an emotional flip. It was like doing this sort of, you know, I, I don't know, different forms of martial arts. I don't want to say anything I shouldn't, but you know, like a jiu jitsu, right? If someone's coming at you full force with one thing and you're able to take all that momentum and kind of turn it on its head, it's really, it's really an interesting thing. And you're seeing it now, it's more prevalent than it used to be. I've been involved with a company for a long time called Lexicon, that's I think, the best naming agency in the world. They name Swiffer, Febreze, Dasani, Pentium MacBook, Sonos, you know, on and on and on. And they named BlackBerry. The original name for BlackBerry was going to be called Mega Mail. I mean, talk about descriptive and kind of flat and not particularly interesting. They named Pentium for Intel that was going to be called the Pro chip. Again, forgettable, right? They, they, they came up with Pentium because they made up this word. It's a word that doesn't exist, right? It's coined, it does not, it doesn't exist anywhere. And they mocked it up on all sorts of products from mascara to high performance skis to gasoline. And when they ask people, what is this? What does this word, you know, invoke? What does it make you feel? People came back and said, powerful, innovative, breakthrough. And they and the folks at Lexicon went back to Andy Grove, who was running intel at the time, and said, do you want to be pro or do you want to be breakthrough, powerful, innovative? Because if you want to be pro, there's pro chip. If you want to be innovative, breakthrough, powerful, there's this Pentium thing and the rest is kind of history. So I always start with what is the thing called? And then I start with what could it look like? It's all about emotion. You know, people talk about innovation all the time, and I love the idea of innovation. To me, emotional innovation is the thing, because if you are technically innovative, but no one likes what you're doing, it doesn't make them feel something in a positive way. How innovative is it really? You know, like, no one's going to. No one's going to buy it. No one's going to want to buy it over and over again. No one's going to want to tell all their friends about it. No one's going to place it all over their house or in their, you know, car or in their bag or their backpack. You know, it's just. It's about emotion. Everything is really about that. So what does the word make you feel? What does it look like when you see it? What does the packaging feel like when you touch it? You know, all these things communicate. That's just, you know, what does it feel like? Like touch. What does it feel like? No one's talking about that stuff. It's not just what does it feel like emotionally in your mind? What does it physically feel like? Like I'm holding a tube with a little toothpaste. And I like to say we were keeping love alive because we were saving marriages. Because you could squeeze this thing till the proverbial cows come home and it comes back to its original shape. Because my design brief for this was, I love the toothpaste to look the same the day I discard it as the day I bought it and be pretty enough to display. That was a design brief. And by the way, it's a recyclable tube. You know, most jurisdictions, you can curbstog, recycle this thing. All of that was considered breakthrough at the top. Like, the bar is low, people. That's what I got.
- [23:08]
Interviewer
Where. Where this. This passion and sense for design names and just how you even think about just brand positioning and kind of taking that from the beginning. Where does that come from?
- [23:23]
Craig Dubitsky
I wish I could tell you as a little boy, I love to take things apart. I used to take apart my mom's vacuum all the time. It was really. It was really fun for me to literally take it apart and put it back together. And I used to think I wanted to be an architect. And I would take big pieces of paper and I design like basically a space capsule city. It had a park in it and a place to grow food and a place for people to sleep and schools. Like, I would go into this intricate detail and make these sort of maze like things when I was really little. I've always liked that. And I've. And I think, I think where I. I really had a moment. This is really going to date me. My father was an old school, what they call a garmento. He was a textile guy. My dad made silk for Ralph Lipschitz before he became Ralph Lauren for his ties. Like my. My dad's old school garment industry guy. And my dad came home one day, I was in second grade, which I can't believe I can even remember this, but I was in second grade and my dad came home with this album. And you and I have talked a lot about music. Like we have a real shared passion for music. My dad comes home with this album and he said my fabrics are going to be on the COVID of this album. So he got like a test pressing of a vinyl, but there was no cover yet. And I put on the first song, at least maybe I think it was the first song. And it was this song called Saturday Night. And the band was the Bay City Rollers, who were very big in Scotland and the UK and they were coming to America and they weren't here yet. So I get this album and I hear the song S A T U R D A Y Night. It's this catchy is all get out song, at least for back in the 70s. And I tell every single person after hearing that song that they had to hear the song. I went all over, I told everybody, wait till you hear this band. The basic religion is the greatest thing ever. And people looked at me like I had eight heads. And you know, I was. I wasn't say I was shunned. No one like took me outside and threw rocks at me or anything. But, you know, I was. I was definitely ignored. And then, however, many months later my dad's fabrics are on the album, the album comes out, it becomes this huge hit. And so many people that I had bugged incessantly about this great song and everyone had to know about it came back and were, you know, like asking me, how did you do that? How did you get that? And how did you know, and to me it just seemed obvious. I heard it first. And what I learned really was the power of cultural currency. Like being able to figure out what people want or might like before they even know about it and then sharing that with them. So I think in my early days I got such positive feedback after someone discovered something that to me seemed very obvious, that I tended to focus on that. And again, we're more universally aligned than not. And if I can figure out where the gaps are, where people are missing something, where a brand name or a design language or a formulation can fit, really good things happen. You love music like I do, right? So if I think about one of my favorite lyrics ever, there's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in, right? Leonard Cohen. And our job is to figure out where the cracks are. And if you do that, you know, we can, we can bring some light. Whether that's through again, design, cultural fit, eco friendly formulations, you, you name it, it's wherever the light is, that's our job. So the cracks are there. We just have to keep our eyes open there and they definitely reveal themselves.
- [26:52]
Interviewer
How. I know that you ran a number of businesses in college and then you became a trader, but how did you, how did you get into consumer products and from maybe, maybe from trade, from the world of finance into, into consumer.
- [27:08]
Craig Dubitsky
Sure. So yeah, in college where I switched many a major, I switched majors many times.
- [27:13]
Interviewer
You started off in music, but you started off.
- [27:14]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah, I started out in music. I did, I started music and then became, I was an English major, English philosophy major, double major. I forgot what else I was in there. And then an economics major. And then, and you know, I'm an arbitrageur, basically. I see discrepancies in everything. It doesn't matter if it's currency, culture, commodities, it's just how for some reason I'm, I'm wired. So in college I started, I think the first thing I started. Well, I had a business I probably can't talk about. I sold some things. Nothing, nothing drug related. I'm a very clean living guy, but I've never smoked anything, cigarettes or otherwise. I, I, I'm very clean living guy, but I had a business with a friend of mine in Japan, believe it or not. And we were selling media from American television shows that you couldn't get in Japan. So I had that business going before I started college. Then I had a trucking business, I had a food business open seven nights a week. I had a carpeting business where I got the dimensions for all the dorm rooms from university and would let students choose their top three colors for about a week, you know, when classes were starting and, and then I would bulk all their preferences and buy rolls of carpet and have it custom cut to their dorm rooms. Charge more if I delivered it to the room, less as they came and picked it up off the back of a truck in the central location. I did all these things I just made money in, in school because I realized, wait, if you're working hard in school or you had a big night out and it's 1:30 in the morning and Domino Start stops delivering, you're still hungry. And every dollar you either earn yourself or get from your parents is all disposable income. So when you're hungry at 1:30 you got nowhere to go. And I've got a place in the dorm room making pizza bagels and sandwiches and pizza. You are, you are going for it. So it's just seeing this opportunity and then, you know, again filling in the gaps. That's it. So anyway, sorry, that was me in college, but then you asked. That was the starting point.
- [29:12]
Interviewer
Well, actually I have a question about that. I have, I have a question about that though. In college, you know, it's, it's really interesting. A lot of, and I know that, you know, there's a lot of changes when, when you were in college and when I was in college versus, you know, Gen Z. But yes, what. There's a lot of brands, of course, that are trying to access the college market, trying to access Gen Z. From your experience selling to college students, what are, what were some of, what do you think about that kind of customer set in terms of college students? What were some of the things that, that were quite interesting of that dynamic?
- [29:49]
Craig Dubitsky
Well, for one, I was, I was of the set. So it wasn't sort of selling to, it was providing for as an insider, but as a little bit of a corollary, I think the meta version of your question is like, how do you find your audience and sell to them to some degree, right? Like how do you figure out who that is? And I think what's been really important and powerful and exciting for me has been this idea that you create things that people don't buy, you don't sell to them. You create something that they join and it's very different than this like transactional nature that I think a lot of folks go for. You want to create something that they feel like has been needed and you crack the code. And where's this been my whole life. And if you do that right, people again, they don't just like your thing, they join your thing and then they tell everybody about it. They go, wow, like someone figured out that at 1:30 after Domino's stops taking orders, I'm going to be hungry. And oh yeah, the product's really good. You have to come through with the goods. Like the product has to be amazing. But it's this idea of being hyper thoughtful and once you, you know, once you deliver on those things, you're sold, you know, it's, it's and it's, and it's not that fungible. And I get really excited when I think about brands or opportunities which to me are kind of one of the same in a lot of ways. If you can create something that people feel is, is durable and what I like to think of as endearing and enduring, you know, if you do it right again, people fall in love with it and they find it hard to replace. Like, if Method went away tomorrow, I think there would be people that would be very sad and upset. If my Pixel phone went away, I'd get a Samsung Galaxy. You know, like, big deal. If my Lenovo laptop went away, I'd get a Dell. If my Dell went away, I'd get an hp. If my HP went away, I'd get an Acer, I'd get a Chromebook. Like, it wouldn't be as big a deal, but man, if my MacBook went away, oh man, all bets are off, you know, like, so how did they do that? I can't. Like, Chrome works on all these devices, right? So if you're using Chrome, like we happen to be right now, so why do I want to run chrome on my MacBook? Why do I want to have a MacBook? Like, oh, it's the ecosystem of Apple.
- [32:15]
Podcast Host
This episode is brought to you by the Hidden Gems. Let's be honest, there's a lot of bullshit in the marketing agency world. So much under delivering overcharging and incompetence, you truly don't know who's good until you engage. And by then it's too late. That's what the Hidden Gem solves for. Powered by deep agency insider knowledge, they provide founders and brand operators with only brand beloved, highly vetted boutique agencies at preferred rates. Agencies across media, creative, dev, design, events, social and beyond. All well covered. The Hidden Gems serves brands like Dr. Squash, Monster Energy, Gorilla Mind, Figs and Sadva to achieve some of their biggest growth. And here's the best part. David Drexler, the founder, is offering his Service free forever to anyone in the consumer VC community who mentions the show. So if you're thinking about hiring an agency, talk to the hidden gems first. It's free service, biggest bang for your buck. You simply can't lose link in the show notes.
- [33:08]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah, that's kind of an excuse. But the reality is it's an ecosystem because so many people have joined it and not just bought it, but have joined it and use these products in a way where they're not using them, they're fully integrated into their lives. And that's the magic creating things that people want to self select to integrate into their lives. And people write their narratives through their stuff. So we as shepherds of providing stuff because that's our quote unquote business, we have to be hyper mindful of that. And that all feeds back to what I was talking about before around emotion. It's emotion. So you don't join something. You don't want people joining something out of obligation, you want them joining it out of a positive emotion. It's why we're seeing a lot of changes culturally in this country. Positive emotion is in short supply. And I think as we get into this wacky world of AI everything, this idea of authenticity and authentic emotion is going to become this scarce and very important. I'll use the word commodity. It's, it's, it's really interesting times for sure.
- [34:16]
Interviewer
For sure. Yeah, certainly times are very, very interesting. Going back a little bit, what did you see in Adam and Eric when they started Method? What were you drawn to?
- [34:28]
Craig Dubitsky
Well, my first conversation ever with Eric, we had someone in common. I'd started a company. My old CFO said you have to meet this guy, he likes all the same stuff you do. Brand culture, design, packaging. And back then, this is 25 years ago or so packaging like no one like packaging was not really high on a lot of people's like dance card, bingo card list of important things. And I really had this thing for packaging and it's funny you'd asked me before about college stuff and like how did I get into packaging or sorry, how did I get into design and products and CPG and sorry I add my way out of.
- [35:06]
Interviewer
No, I actually add from that because then I went into the college stuff and then I just.
- [35:10]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah, no, no, no, it's not me, I had, I, I, I, you know I've always loved products and I remember I went to the UK for a summer trip as a college kid or maybe before going off to college, I can't remember. And I remember Going to a boots. And I bought. I can't believe the stuff had pops back into my head. I bought a shampoo, as one does. Like, people go and they buy, like, souvenirs. What are my souvenirs? Shampoo. Why the hell did I buy shampoo? I saw this bottle and I was like, look at this cool bottle. It was called Charles Worthington. It was cheap. It was like the. I don't want to keep dating myself with brands most people that are listening will have no memory of. But, you know, like, I was a kid, like, my shampoo is whatever cheap crap my parents bought. It was like, pert plus. It was like, you know, like a dollar a bottle kind of thing. And at a relatively equal price in the uk, there was this beautiful thing called Charles Worthington, and it was this great, like, elliptical shape and it had this really cool flip tab. And the fragrances were amazing. And it was very. It sounded very British and proper. It was Charles Worthington. And I saw this other product that I had bought. I promise I'm going to get back to your question about Adam and Eric. I bought this other product at another trip to the uk, probably some years later, and it was called Physio Sport. And Physio Sport was a product that was a Unilever product that predated Lynx Linx, then became Axe in America. And this product, Physiosport, was, I believe, the first ever men's 3 in 1 shampoo conditioner body wash. And it came in this really cool, cool pack that if you were a dude and you were like, you know, in your locker room or on, you know, like a trip with your girlfriend, you pulled that out of your Dopp kit. You know, people be like, whoa, what's that? It was very cool. And it had a soft touch, sort of feeling, and a valve on the top so it wouldn't leak. And it was just like this badass little thing. So fast forward, Physio Sport package, empty, is probably sitting in a closet or under, like, my childhood bed for, like, I don't know, 25, 30 years. But I never forgot it. I just always thought it was cool. And I kept an empty bottle. I have thousands of empty bottles. So I get connected to Adam and Eric. I meet Eric for dinner and we're talking and something came up about packaging. It's like, yeah, I really love packaging. He's like, well, I, like, really love packaging and design. I'm like, yeah, I kind of do, too. And he's like, no, no. Like, I really do. And I said, I Kind of do, too. What's your favorite? Oh, you're not going to know it. No one in America knows it. I'm like, that's funny. Me too. What's yours? He's like, oh, it's this brand called Physio Sport. I go, Physio Sport. The first men's 3 in 1 shampoo conditioner body wash from the UK that predated links the. And he's like, get the out of here. Like, nobody knows that. I'm like, dude, I have it. I. I have one. It's like seafoam green. It has Olympic rings on. I think it's from, like, 1984. He's like, oh, my God. So we had this wild bonding moment over a freaking pack of a men's personal care product that never made it to America. Didn't make it really in general, but was like a thing. So it went from there to like, hey, I heard you have some idea that's keeping you up at night. And he said, yeah, I'll never forget. He said, yeah, I think cleaning products suck. It was very eloquent. And I said, well, why do you say that? And he said, because the stuff you use to take care of your house, the biggest, most expensive purchase you make is so ugly you hide it and so toxic, you lock it up. And I thought that was the most brilliant thing I'd ever heard. It just made so much sense. There was such clarity there. And I said, you know, I've never really thought about cleaning products before. And you say that. That's really interesting. And now that you say that, I think the brands are all terrible. I probably said, I think the brands all suck. Because he said, you know, I think these products suck. And I'm like, I think the names all suck. He goes, well, why do you say that? And I said, because culturally, all these brands were created when women were supposed to stay at home and smoke cigarettes and deep clean the house every day and have a hot meal waiting on the table and leave a martini glass by the door where the man would walk in and put his folded sports page of the newspaper there and eat his hot meal. And the wife would pine over the fact that she hadn't married an astronaut. Because I had a celebrity back then. You were either like Jackie O in the White House or you were married to an astronaut. And everything else was like, you know, not that exciting for women in the 50s and 60s. And all these brands had X's in the name because it sounded like the space race, you know, the wild world of the future was being demystified, and the mysteries of the periodic table were being brought to you in a bottle with brands like Windex, Ajax, Borax, Oxydol. Comet kept the space race theme going, but didn't have an x in it. Mr. Clean was patterned after, I think, Yul Brenner, who was a sex symbol at the time, where American men were like, that dude's bald and I could kick his ass. And American women were like, Mr. Clean can come help me in other places around the house, if you know what I mean. Tight white T shirt and an earring, like, let's go, big boy. So it was a very different cultural time, and the brands had not caught up with the fact that, oh, that's right, women have careers that don't involve quote, unquote, homemaking. Like, everything had changed culturally. And by the way, we still have a long way to go as far as women's rights are concerned. Concerned, at least I think. But these brands were asleep at the switch for the most part because they had missed the fact that culturally, we had moved. So this is the stuff that, again, gets me really worked up. And I look at all these categories, I'm like, well, what's changed culturally and what hasn't changed in terms of the offerings? And if you can marry up, like, sort of shrink that delta, you know, and bring things in that are a little more culturally relevant and resonant into these mainstream categories that are missing culture and do it in a way that has scale and thoughtfulness brought to it from the beginning. There's. There's some real value to be created and unlocked, I think.
- [41:07]
Interviewer
Totally. Totally. Thanks so much for sharing that story. That's. It's amazing. It's amazing.
- [41:12]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah. It was my lucky day to meet. Meet Adam and Eric, and by the way, they were mixing product in their bathroom. Like, they're incredible guys. I feel like I just talked a lot about Eric, who's really, you know, just a genius right between Method, Welly, Ollie. I mean, he's got an incredible list of unbelievably powerful brands and accomplishments. And by the way, same with Adam. Adam's got incredible history, too. And really, the. The. That marriage that was like, Simon, garfunkel, Lynn, and McCartney. Like, those two are incredible. So I feel very lucky to have met them in their earliest days. And really, I didn't start Method. I was just lucky to meet them early and appreciate the vision of what could be there. And nobody else seemed to get it at the time, which is kind of interesting. Looking back on it, because so many people said no as an investor.
- [41:57]
Interviewer
Right. Yeah, no, it's. It's. I. I would imagine. I mean, that's. Yeah, that's. That's. So. I mean, I. I sometimes I feel like some of the most, you know, successful companies, you know, they're a lot of investors, as I know. I remember reading about. I remember listening to. I think it was how I built this on Peloton and how Peloton had a really hard time fundraising back in the day. And yet, you know, here they are today. Right?
- [42:21]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah. And they've had some moments, but it's not going away. You know, there were people who discounted it and said, like, it's an exercise bike with an iPad strapped on it. And it was like, no, you're missing what it really is. What it really is is building a physical at a digital community in a unique way. While it's getting people to participate in physical activity, it's hopefully going to, you know, improve their health long term, make it kind of fun and interesting and competitive all at once and connected in a way where typically the only connection you had was, you know, going into the locker room at the gym or waiting for someone to get off the machine you wanted to use. It was. It was really incredible. And obviously, Covid, you hate to think of COVID helping things, but when Covid, you know, did its thing and people were like, I. I need something. The fact that it offered not just an exercise regimen at your fingertips, but that it offered connectivity to other human beings as you were doing that, like, that was. That was a bigger, like a higher ordeal, like a higher order of thinking beyond, oh, it's a bicycle with a iPad strapped to it. Like, no, you're missing what it really is. It's a bigger thing. Like, method was a bigger thing. Like, hello, hopefully. You know, people think of one day and be like, oh, yeah, they weren't in the oral care business. I used to say, we're in the friendly business with happy. I don't say we're in the coffee business. We're in the happy business. Coffee is a delivery system for happiness. And. And we're not stopping there. It's. It's. We're in the happy business. So, yeah, that's. If you do that right, you know, again, in a thoughtful way and you build it that way and you have a vision, you can. You can really extend your. Your, you know, your offerings and your purview and hopefully your likelihood of meaning more to more people.
- [44:03]
Interviewer
Totally. I'm so glad you, you, you talked about Happy. Cause I would love to actually, actually transition there. So what, what were some of the inspiration. I mean, I know that you talk about when you're even thinking about starting something, you, you start with a name which makes total sense based off of what you said about. Hello. Why would you, why you would choose Happy?
- [44:24]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah. My wife. It's my wife. My wife. It all started with my wife, by the way. Everything for me comes from this. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I feel like I'm caveating all these things before I say them. You know, I'm going to sound old or cliched or cheesy, but my wife loves coffee. Coffee makes her really happy. And I thought, well, what if Happy could make her coffee? That was it. Like one of the ways that EOS got started, you know, this spherical lip balm. My wife, all of her friends, they all had this purse at the time, this giant cavernous black hole purse, this long shot purse. And we watched a woman stick her hand in there and pull out what she thought was a mascara and it was a tampon. And she was really like, you know, very upset that she was embarrassed. She shouldn't have been, I think, but she was. And the idea was like, well, you have two eyes and you have 10 fingers. What if you just stick your hand in that cavernous black purse and know exactly what you were feeling? This doesn't feel like anything else. Not just because of the soft touch outer, but the shape. Right? So there's a fiddle factor. It's fun to click, it's fun to hold. It's, you know, it's a little stress toy for some people, but it was this idea that we could, you know, appeal to other senses. That was a big reason why that happened. And it never would have come to all that had my wife not have been also, like, addicted to lip balms. And the average woman was ingesting five pounds of petrochemicals from, from lip product. So it was sort of a combination of things, but it all started really like thinking about what goes on at home, thinking about what was happening with someone I love. And that's where Happy came from. Literally. I, I was asked by a big retailer if I would to look at a category with them having nothing to do with, with coffee. They were just like, we like you as a thought partner. Would you be willing to walk stores with our merchants? Which to me was the biggest thrill, because just to be thought of as a, as a thought partner by anybody is, is a is a treat. So I wasn't, you know, not a hired consultant or anything. I was so happy. So to use a word. So I'm walking around the store, yeah, walking around the store with like 40 different merchants or something and all these different categories of the store. And at one point we walked by the coffee aisle and I had not have a sip of coffee in my whole life. I had not ever had coffee ever.
- [46:34]
Interviewer
Why?
- [46:34]
Craig Dubitsky
And like I, I, I'm a high energy kind of person on my own and you don't need it.
- [46:41]
Interviewer
You don't need it.
- [46:42]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah, I just didn't like it. And I think my theory and theory is probably big word for really what this is. I believe that as a kid I was given something that I thought was chocolate ice cream and it turns out it was coffee. And I was like, yuck, if that's coffee, I'll have none of it. And I just was like, I'm not having coffee. So I just didn't grow up with, with coffee. My parents drank coffee, but I just never, it was never a thing in my life. So.
- [47:06]
Interviewer
You are truly naturally caffeinated.
- [47:08]
Podcast Host
This episode is brought to you by the Hidden Gems. Let's be honest, there's a lot of bullshit in the marketing agency world. So much underdelivering, overcharging and incompetence. You truly don't know who's good until you engage. And by then it's too late. That's what the Hidden Gem solves for. Powered by deep agency insider knowledge, they provide founders and brand operators with only brand beloved, highly vetted boutique agencies at preferred rates, agencies across media, creative, dev, design, events, social and beyond. All well covered. The Hidden Gems serves brands like Dr. Squash, Monster Energy, Gorilla Mind Figs and Sadva to achieve some of their biggest growth. And here's the best part. David Drexler, the founder, is offering his service free forever to anyone in the consumer VC community who mentions the show. So if you're thinking about hiring an agency, talk to the Hidden Gems first. It's free service. Biggest bang for your buck. You simply can't lose link in the show notes.
- [48:01]
Craig Dubitsky
I am naturally caffeinated. My, my daughter, I'm, I'm married, two kids, son and a daughter. And one day my daughter said to me there for God, I was driving her to school a day, she goes, dad, you don't really like the idea of like cleaning up so much and you know, you were involved with method and that was, you know, that's pretty cool. And you don't like lip balm and you don't like to shave and you did this EOS thing and that kind of, you know, like, worked out and you really don't love going to the dentist and you did this hello thing and that worked out. So it makes complete sense to me that you would start a coffee company. Makes complete sense. And I was like, wow, from the mouths of babes. So, yeah, sometimes something has to annoy you, and that is a motivator. You're like, you know, if this annoys me, chances are, because again, we're more alike than we're dissimilar as human beings. Going back to this theme of common and uncommon, if it annoys me, it might annoy a lot of other people too. So fast forward, I'm back in the story of being in the coffee aisle. And I had an audience. They wanted me to say things. And I'm trying to be, I guess, insightful slash entertaining. And I just started making fun of other brands, not to be malicious, just because I had no. I had no thoughts that I was going to ever do anything in coffee. And I was just kind of picking apart things, kind of like I was with extracted teeth and oral care or, you know, bad petrochemicals and lip products or cleaning products with X's in the names. You know, I was just picking out things that to me were kind of obvious in coffee. And they were like, well, what would you do? I didn't have any bees in that bonnet. I didn't have any dogs in that hunt or fight or whatever. Pick your euphemism that I'm maligning right there. And I just didn't think much about it. I said, I don't know, I'll get back to you. And I went about my business with them and I got on a plane to go home and I started to think a little bit about coffee and how much my wife loves coffee. And I said, you know, coffee makes her really happy. What if happy could make her coffee? That was it. And I knew I was all in because I love to write, I love and, you know, wordplay. I wake up at 3:02 in the morning and do the New York Times spelling bee. Like, I just love words. And I had this moment. It was my first flight after Covid kind of loosened up a little bit. You know, you could, like, get on a plane, not worry too much. You still were masked up. And I had a family wedding to go to, get on a plane. And I put on my headphones and I started to think about Happy. Nothing was Launched yet it was still, like, just thinking about it. And I wrote this one line. I wrote, bruin improved. And I'm like, okay, I'm good. I'm in. Like, that was it. Literally, like, that line made me go like, okay, I can do this. I can think of some marketing angles. I could think of some copy. I could start to think of a language, a tone of voice, a visual vocabulary. And I started sketching things out and writing a lot. And I did this with hello. I had a keynote deck with a tagline of some sort on. Oh, just each slide was just one line of copy. And I had this, like, 800 page deck that was just lines about using the word hello in different ways and oral care and every other aspect of personal care. I would just go wild with copy and tone of voice. And I started to do the same thing with happy. And I trademarked the word happy with not just coffee, but, you know, adjacent things that are important. And now we're in R with a circle, which is the highest degree of trademark protection you can have to have a registered mark, not just a trademark, but a registered trademark. And that took some time. And what happened was I was back down visiting this retailer, and someone pinged me and said, hey, I'm the new coffee buyer, and I heard you blew my predecessor's mind. Can we meet? And I said, of course. And I started showing them pictures of things on my iPad that I was playing around with. And they said, this is great. When could you ship? Like, when can I ship what? My iPad? Like, no, like, we. We sell things. We know you. You're an approved vendor. Like, we. We. We know you do this kind of thing. Like, I want it. When could you. When could you ship it? I was like, well, how many. How many doors would you want to test? They're like, we're not testing. Like, we want it for all doors. It's amazing. When can you ship? There was nothing to taste, right? I didn't have anything. I've never even had a cup of coffee. So I was like, well, how many SKUs would you want? They're like, you're not paying attention. We want all the SKUs. When could you ship? So I said, I better get back to you. And I started to think about it, and I was incredulous. You know, like, this, like, that just doesn't happen.
- [52:17]
Interviewer
Doesn't happen. Yeah.
- [52:18]
Craig Dubitsky
No. And I. And I really mean this. It's not like I had any expectations. I didn't. I was. I was as shocked as. As anybody. So I'M talking with a friend of mine the next day or something, telling him this, like, crazy story, right? Like, how could this be? And he says, you know, and he is a fud. He goes, you know, we're investors in the largest vertically integrated coffee roaster in the world. Right, I forgot. So now I'm like, hmm. So I guess I could figure out how to source coffee. And that sort of all jump started. But it was really a combination of. Even before thinking about that, it was, what could it be? What, what. What could we call it? What would it sound like? If it were a person, who would it be? Or close to? And, you know, like, give. Give this concept a voice and a personality. Because I think it's all about that, you know, the idea that we can make personal care personal again, make coffee a little more human. You know, a lot of things in cleaning products like I described were, you know, about like your job as a happy homemaker was to kill, eliminate and destroy odors, germs and bacteria around your house. In oral care, it was the same narrative, right? You have to kill, eliminate, destroy odors, germs and bacteria in your mouth, whiter whites and brighter brights for your laundry. That was a big thing. Same thing in your mouth for your teeth. Like, these stories, these weird ways of describing things and setting expectations for people were very brilliantly manipulated. So trying to think of a different vibe around coffee, which typically was like, fuel the best part of waking up, you know, good to last drop. Like, there were certain expectations and euphemisms and ways at looking at that category, or it was like, super crafty. You know, it was like, I'm a roaster and I handpick each bean. I wear a velvet glove and, you know, I have this proprietary roasting thing. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance and, you know, and ritual that maybe was a little too much. So it was sort of figuring out, like, well, how do we approach it a little bit differently? And that was all like, you know, kind of in the thinking, you know, how do we think about it differently from the packaging to the copy to, you know, the UPC code? I mean, like, everything communicates. Everything's got a little, a little touch to it. Like, if I open this thing up, even the, you know, even the, the COVID and there's a valve in it to help with freshness, but there's like a little step and repeat when you open it up, you know, and it doesn't say, like, start your day. It says, let's coffee. Like, it's Joyful. It's fun, it's easy. And yeah, the product itself is amazing. But the most, I think, important thing about it, about this as a brand and as hopefully what, what goes beyond this idea of what we think of when we think about brands and branding is I was on the, I was on a, a FaceTime with Downey. We can talk about Downey too. So Robert Downey Jr. Is my co founder, which is a pretty amazing story. We can get to that if you want. But yes. Anyway, he and I are on this video chat, so we're FaceTiming and we're talking about happy. And my bride is sitting behind me at the time and she's a PhD in clinical psychology. And Downey says, I get it, but not everybody's happy. What can we do about that? And I turn around, I look at my wife and I'm like, honey, who's doing anything amazing at scale around mental health? And she goes, oh, nami. Point flanks like nami. I'm like, what's nami? She goes, oh, national alliance on Mental Illness. So I Google NAMI and I go on LinkedIn and I weasel my way into finding someone that I can talk with NAMI. And I eventually get to somebody and sort of tell my story a little bit and say, look, I'm, I'm really interested in what you, what you do and we're going to start this brand. And I sort of qualify myself a little bit by talking about other things I've been lucky enough to be around. And person's like, oh, I brushed my teeth with hello and my kids brushed my teeth with hello and oh my God, I use method and es. So that was very helpful, obviously. So I get invited down to Washington D.C. i had this amazing session with NAMI and they tell me the number one thing they hear from people is, if only I'd known about you sooner. And I said, well, that's really interesting. Tell me more. And they said, well, the number one killer of teens when I was a teenager were car accidents. And number two is leukemia, which I'm glad we've made great strides against childhood cancers, you know, obviously. And cars certainly get safer and safer these days. But things have changed. Now the number one killer of teens is handguns, and number two is suicide. And often one and two go together. And for adults, the suicide rate, this, by the way, isn't all about suicide, but the suicide rate in adults has gone up 30% in the past two decades and 80% are men. And depending on which study, look at let's go with the sort of softer one. Not in terms of the protocols behind the study, but a number that is a little easier to digest. 1 in 5. There's another study that says 1 in 4, but let's go with 1 in 5. Adults in the US have some form of mental illness as clinically defined as mental illness. Not like, oh man, my team didn't get to the playoffs. I'm sad that my team didn't get to the Super Bowl. I'm sad. I don't mean to discount anyone's feelings about that, but I mean like clinical grade, you know, mental health and the numbers are staggering. And you know, hearing that and hearing how Nami had all these people that were saying, I wish I'd known about you sooner, knowing that was an awareness issue, we were like, well, what if we, what if we were to put information about Nami on every package? And they were like, you would do that? And we said, of course we'd do that. And on every pack of product, no matter what it is, we have a QR code, a toll free number. Information about Nami, it's not preachy, it's not, it's subtle, but it's there and there's contact information and there's real help. It's not, this is real help. And it's, it's important that people know that. And it's obviously confidential. And NAMI started 988, which is the 911 for mental health and it's only a few years old, but the other year it had over 2 million calls. 2 million calls. And no one calls that because, you know, they want to know like, you know, time and date. Like they're calling because they're, there's something really happening. So it's an important thing and what has really changed my world, my life, my, my view on things. And I was hand on heart not expecting this because I'm a, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a builder, I'm, I'm a thinker, dreamer type. I, I thought, you know, we're going to make this business and here's how it's going to operate. We're going to, it's to going called happy and we're going to get coffee and we're going to get our retailers and we're going to ship it and I'm going to write copy and we're going have tone of voice. It's going to be really great. This is the part that I never in a million years could have expected. So every Single day today, no different since starting this, I hear from someone who I've either just met or someone who I thought I knew really well for a long period of time, that tells me a mental health story. That to say it's sobering and also hopeful in many cases because we're making great strides around being able to talk about mental health. But there's a lot of very sorrow laden stories out there. So every day I hear something unexpected from an unexpected place all around mental health and someone even on our team. The day we launched, we were so excited we launched and someone who I've known for a very long time told me about losing someone in their family to suicide, you know, a sibling when they were a young teenager. And I had known this person for 18 years and didn't know that story. And it came out the day we launched. They said, the reason I'm so excited to be here is because of this. That was part of my family's life. And I was blown away because I had known this person for so long and never knew that. And I was talking with a friend of mine that night, a very, very close friend, because I was so kind of shaken up by this story. And he said to me, you know, we had to pull our daughter out of school last week. She's on a team and two of her teammates went into their dorm room and hang themselves. And it hasn't stopped. All the stories I hear are not about suicide. I want to be really clear about that. But they're incredible. And I've had people come over. Well, I'll be at the Natural Products Expo. I've had people come over to our booth and just start to cry and hug me and say, oh, Nami saved my family member's life. I was thinking about some things last year and I got in touch with Ami and they saved my life. I'm part of this group now and that group now. It's incredible. What I told our team was a lot of brands to their credit. I don't mean this again to sound negative at all. I really, really mean this. You know, they talk about their purpose and their mission and it's really important to have a purpose and a mission because we're here for as long as we are, right? It's great to feel part of something bigger. And again, going back to the notion, I keep going back to this, about what we share in common. Having a mission or purpose is great and a lot of mission and purpose. When I spend time with entrepreneurs, startups, other founder types, it's our purpose, our mission. It's all like me, me, me, very insular, like pointing back at the company and our mission. Our purpose and what I share with our team after hearing this couple of stories early on was this isn't about our purpose and our mission. This is about our responsibility. It's outward facing. This impacts everybody. Mental health does not care where you were born, what your native tongue is, how many commas you do or do not have in your bank account. It impacts everybody.
- [61:41]
Podcast Host
This episode is brought to you by the Hidden Gems let's be honest, there's a lot of bullshit in the marketing agency world. So much under delivering overcharging and incompetence, you truly don't know who's good until you engage. And by then it's too late. That's what the Hidden Gem solves for Powered by Deep Agency insider knowledge, they provide founders and brand operators with only brand beloved, highly vetted boutique agencies at preferred rates, agencies across media, creative, dev, design, events, social and beyond. All well covered. The Hidden Gems serves brands like Dr. Squash Monster Energy, Gorilla Mind, Figs and Sadva to achieve some of their biggest growth. And here's the best part. David Drexler, the founder, is offering his service free forever to anyone in the consumer VC community who mentions the show. So if you're thinking about hiring an agency, talk to the Hidden Gems first. It's free service, biggest bang for your buck. You simply can't lose Link in the
- [62:33]
Craig Dubitsky
show notes so we're taking this like very to say we're trying to remove stigma and do it in a very meaningful and in a serious way is an understatement. But with the wink of being a brand called Happy and appreciating the tension between Happy and the fact that not everybody is much to Downey's credit for that comment he had made. So we wanted to do something with Nami apart from just putting information on our product and we didn't want to be performing informative about anything. So we had this idea, what if we could reimagine the relationship between philanthropy and entrepreneurship? And we literally gave Nami a piece of the company. So like Nami is on our cap table, they own a piece of our company and it's not about, oh, we're giving them some profits. Oh, you know what, we're a startup, we're not profitable. You know, oh, we made money. But we've Omakase Tuesday. You know, we take everybody because we got to build our team culture. So it's Omakase and you Know, we tell stories about where we're going on vacation. Sorry, we don't have any profits because, you know, we're building culture. And, you know, we. We're all for building culture, don't get me wrong. And I love miso mamakase. But we want to do something again that was a little bit different and not about, you know, window dressing or how can we leverage all the cultural and social and moral goodwill of another entity to inure to our benefit and then, you know, just use that as fodder to build our brand. It just didn't feel. It didn't feel right. Just authentic. Fill in. Fill in the blank with whatever word you can think of. But I think hopefully people get the meaning. I'm going for it. Just, you know, people have a bullshit meter and they can tell. So we're trying to really walk the walk and talk the talk. And not everything's on our website, but we do some really amazing things. We. We gave a million pods, you know, K cups away to school teachers a couple of months ago all over the country, because, like, they're filling everybody else's cup. Who's filling their cup? Right. That's a cute way of saying it, but it's true. We want to do things that are going to be helpful to people. We created posters for teachers lounges and for businesses. Literally, we had this moment where we're like, you know, there are these choking hazard posters all over the place. Like, what to do if someone's choking. You know, many people die from choking in a public place versus die. Die by suicide or have a mental health crisis. It's not even close. Right? But there's no poster for that. So we made a poster. And we have information about how to identify when someone might be in crisis, what questions to ask them. And we have these for the certain set that's for schools and a certain set that's for anywhere else, by the way. Anyone can go to our website and see it and download it for free. We'll mail it to you for free. I think we might ask you to pay like $2. Cause we have to put in a tube. It's a big, really nice poster. But yeah, we're trying to like, walk the walk and talk the talk. And. Oh yeah, I have awesome product. Like, so this stuff is challenging. But that's the point. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. And if you do it like everybody else, you're gonna, you know, like, people don't need another just like everybody else thing. They need something that's for them that they, again, that they. They feel like, where has that been my whole life? And that's for me. And I'm joining that because I believe in that totally.
- [65:36]
Interviewer
That's incredibly powerful and amazing that you're. That you're partners with Nami and also that you put them on your cap table. That's really, really cool.
- [65:47]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah. I'm the luckiest guy you just met. For real? For real. I love this stuff.
- [65:52]
Interviewer
How did you meet Robert Downey Jr.
- [65:56]
Craig Dubitsky
Well, I'm often mistaken for him, so I just got sick of this whole doppelganger thing and. And I was like, I just gotta meet this guy. So it turns out the world is much smaller and magical than I think most people realize. And the idea that I would know somebody who would know Robert Downey Jr. Or that would want to connect me to Robert Downey Jr. Is hard for me to fathom, but that is the truth. So years ago, I got introduced to somebody in Hollywood. His name's Ari Emanuel. I didn't know him or anything about Hollywood. And, you know, we had a conversation and, and we had multiple conversations. This is many years ago. And ultimately, when I started up hello Endeavor, his company made an investment in hello. Which I don't know that I've ever really showed that out loud, but it's no big deal at this point anyway. And Ari has many superpowers, and one of those superpowers is he remembers everything. That guy remembers everything. And he is a super connector. And we were talking about something, and I guess I must have said something about coffee. And however, many months later, my phone rings and it's Ari. And he's saying, hey, are you still thinking about doing coffee? And I tell him all these things, you know, Yeah, I was with this retailer and I trademarked the word happy and you know, all this stuff. And I got my vertically integrated coffee roasting partner and it's huge. He's like, well, one of our people is really serious about when he started coffee company. He didn't even use gender. He just kept a very high level. And he asked me, he's like, would you be. You know, can you. Can you talk to their people? Because I told them they can't do anything until they speak with you. You just speak with them. And I'm just, listen, no joke. I'm just pleased as punch. Somebody calls me, right? Let alone him, it doesn't matter. I'm not that picky. I'm just like, wow. So he asked me a favor and, like, I'm in the yes business. Right. So to the extent I can be. So I'm like, of course. And I always want to be helpful. So sure. Of course. If I can be helpful on there. So I got on a video chat with a bunch of folks and I was kind of expecting it to be, you know, not the call that it was. I started getting asked these really intense questions about how are you handling potential mold growth in containers that are moving across borders in South America? How are you dealing with soil density issues in Sumatra, given the, you know, impact on humidity changes and how that's affecting the outer casing and the honey of the coffee cherry? And I'm like, what is this? So I do my best to answer these questions. And they said, well, you know, Ari said, you have something you're working on. And I have history with them. They were investors of mine. It wasn't like I was trying to be cagey. And I started showing them, like, yeah, this idea that's called Happy and da da, da. And there was nothing. Right. They didn't have coffee yet. There was like, these were just ideas. And I showed them a comp of a 3D model. I printed out a packaging, and they all start yelling at each other. I don't give an F if he's with, you know, Spielberg. Get him on here. I don't, you know, I'm like, get who? What? Like, what's happening? And so I go, oh, Robert Downey Jr. And I'm like, wait, what? And all of a sudden, like, Downey pops on this video chat and he's all the things. He's lovely and charming. I. I don't want to start cursing because I like, I like an F bomb here and there. But, like, I don't know if this is an edited or G rated podcast. No, this is.
- [69:14]
Podcast Host
This is R. You're.
- [69:15]
Craig Dubitsky
Darren is smart as all get out, man. He is funny as and he is. He's amazing. And I say this, it's. I don't want to sound disrespectful. I wasn't a fanboy. I was like, ooh, Robert Downey Jr. I didn't know anything about Robert Downey Jr. But I certainly knew his name. And I have kids. Have I seen a Marvel movie? Of course I've seen a Marvel movie. So it's not like I didn't know who Robert Downey Jr. Was, but I wasn't like, I'm not fanboying Robert Daddy Jr. I just, you know, I'm being a gazillion times, honest. I Had no preconceived notion I didn't know anything about him, but I certainly knew his name. And he comes on the call and he is charming, funny, smart. He's all the things, right? I'm like, wow, he's a cool cat. And then go show him the thing and tell him what it's called. And, you know, it's this lovely, nice little chat. And at this point, I have to go. I think I had a. I think I had to pick up my daughter for mock trial practice. So I'm like, hey, listen, really great to meet you. Good luck with your coffee company. You know, I answered some questions about coffee and brand and stuff, and I was like, good luck with your coffee company, and really great to meet you. You know, like, you know, peace out. And I. I had a go, and he stayed on the line with all of his peeps, and. And I left, and I got a call like an hour later or something. He's all in. I'm like, all in on what? They're like, no, he wants to do this with you. I'm like, do what with me? Pick up my daughter at mock trial. Like, I don't even know what you're talking about. And I said, thanks very much, and I'm sorry, I gotta go. Like, her thing is over and I gotta go pick her up or I have to go get my cylinder. Whatever it was. I had to go. You know, I wasn't. There's like, no game. I was like, I gotta go. Like, good luck. It was great, you know, great to meet him. And then Ari calls me and goes, listen, I know you as a person, and I know him as a person, and I know you don't really know Hollywood stuff, and that's not your thing. But you two, I know you both. And I'm telling you, if you get to know him, like, you. You. You need to talk to them. Cause I think if you guys do this together, it's going to be incredible. And just do me a favor. Just like, I want to set up a call and I want you to. Just to talk, the two of you. So I'm like, all right. So this call gets set up, a video chat for, like, you know, 45 minutes or something. And I don't want to bore your listeners to death, but it went. It went for over three and a half hours. Me and Doubty, and I told them right up front, I said, no disrespect. I didn't Google you wiki, you tmzu, New York Post, Page six. You Like, I don't know anything. So, like. Because I didn't want to know anything unless you told it to me. So I. And I said that, like, again, not to be disrespectful. I was trying to be extra respectful. Like, I only want to know what you want to tell me. So I'm kind of pure here. I don't know anything. And I think that was probably an interesting way to start the conversation. And he saw next to me I had this weird guitar. And he was like, is that a Steinberger guitar next to you? And I was like, you know what kind of guitar this is? And he's like, dude, how old are you? It turns out, you know, he's maybe six months older than I, five months older than I. He's like, where are you? I said, I'm in the third floor of my house in Montclair, New Jersey. He's like, you know, I lived in Montclair, New Jersey, and I was really little. It's like, no way. He's like, yeah, my parents moved there for like, I think like two years or something. When I was like, two, like, wow, that's wild. So we start talking about music, and next thing you know, we're singing some deep cut Elvis Costello track to one another, which is like, deep cut. You couldn't fake knowing this. It was like physio sport with Eric Ryan. Like, you could not fake, right? Like, you either knew it or you didn't. Like, you either had that shit under your bed from 30 years ago or you didn't. So we're having these wild moments and I. I was like to like, give me your. Give me your story. Like, what's the story? So I basically hear his story and his life story. I didn't know. I really, truly didn't know anything. And by the end of us sharing stories about how our wives had played major impacts in our lives for a whole bunch of different reasons, but the impacts were no less wildly meaningful. By the end of this conversation, I heard a lot about his bride. I shared a lot about my bride. Different lives and different trajectories, clearly, but just again, the importance of having good partners in your life. And I heard a lot. In his case, coffee playing a very important role in his life. And he's really, really into coffee. I mean, not like a normal person. My wife loves coffee. This is next level. You can give down. He's like, I have a pre cup before my first cup. I'm like, you're kidding. He's like, no, that's My just like, I gotta get going cup. But no, he's really serious. He has a lot of coffee hardware. He has. If there's a coffee that's been able to be ingested by a human, he's probably had like two or three. If you give him five coffees from different elevations, like, literally harvested from different elevations, he can rank order them, like, at like elevation highest to lowest. He's really, really, really passionate and really serious about coffee. So I hear a lot about his. His life. I hear a lot about the will of coffee in his life. And by the end of this amazing three and a half hour coffee conversation, I said, I'd really like to meet your wife and have you meet my wife and the four of us to chat. And he was like, okay, like, you sound kind of serious. And I said, yeah, in life you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family. When you start a company, it's like being able to choose your family. So I want to meet your family and I want you to be my family. And we set up this call for the four of us. My wife was really mad because she's, you know, just, she's, she's an academic. She's never seen a Marvel movie. She is American, but she grew up all over the world, you know. You know, her father was a career diplomat. I mean, she has an amazing background and she's all about just like helping animals, helping people. She's a, you know, clinical psychologist. Hollywood stuff in her mind was like, I have to talk to a Hollywood superstar superhero and his wife. I was like, honey, it'll be 10 minutes. They're in Malibu. They probably have red carpets to walk down. Like, it's just, it'll be really short. And it went on for over two and a half hours. And it was amazing. And my wife, who never says that, she's like, that was amazing. They're incredible. That call was incredible. Everyone was interacting. She's like, do not pass go. You need to do this. And she never does that. And we did all those things and the secret handshakes and the downies are incredible. Susan's incredible. Robert's incredible. All the people around them are incredible. His team and endeavor that we work with are amazing. It's a very special thing. It's not been, oh, I give you four Instagram posts a year. It's like, no, he's a co founder. Like, dude's been with me to Walmart in Bentonville. He's been with me to Minneapolis to Target. We've had calls with Kroger together. We like, we. He is in it. He is in it. We would have launched 10 months earlier, but he was so involved with the blending process for our blends that it took an extra 10 months to get it right. Like, this is not a casual thing. He's not a spokesperson. He's my co founder, my partner. Like, we are in it. We are in it. So it's very cool. It's very different. There's no, again, like, you know, spokesperson, contractual. I'll show up three times a year. I'll give you four Instagram posts. It's.
- [76:00]
Podcast Host
This episode is brought to you by the Hidden Gems. Let's be honest, there's a lot of bullshit in the marketing agency world. So much underdelivering, overcharging and incompetence. You truly don't know who's good until you engage. And by then it's too late. That's what the Hidden Gem solves for. Powered by deep agency insider knowledge, they provide founders and brand operators with only brand beloved, highly vetted boutique agencies at preferred rates. Agencies across media, creative, dev, design, events, social and beyond. All well covered. The Hidden Gems serves brands like Dr. Squash, Monster Energy, Gorilla Mind, Figs and Sadva to achieve some of their biggest growth. And here's the best part. David Drexler, the founder, is offering his service free forever to anyone in the consumer VC community who mentions the show. So if you're thinking about hiring an agency, talk to the Hidden Gems first. It's free service, biggest bang for your buck. You simply can't lose link in the show notes.
- [76:52]
Craig Dubitsky
It's the real thing. It's great. So, and he's a dude, so I've, he's, he's, he's the best. I'm, I'm really, really, you know, I'm blushing over here. It's great.
- [77:01]
Interviewer
Yeah. I, I know you talked a little bit about, first of all, incredible how you met and. As well as just how you both just hit it off. Hit it off with, with a headless guitar and the guitar. Yeah, exactly. How do you think about. Since Robert is a. Is a true co founder, how do you think about, you know, the responsibility, the responsibilities that kind of Robert does or brings the table of, of happy.
- [77:23]
Podcast Host
His involvement overall.
- [77:24]
Interviewer
I know it's not just like a four Instagram post a year or something like that. How do you, how do you kind of think about his involvement? Because of course he also has a. Another busy schedule. Not that you don't have a busy schedule. Don't get me wrong, but also is, you know, has movies and kind of other. Other. Other commitments.
- [77:41]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah, yeah. I'll give you an example, because when you look, it's like when you. When you love something, you find a way to make it work, right? Yes. Like, there's 24 hours in a day, you know, death, gravity, taxes, all those things. When we were working on the blends, he was in Vietnam shooting a show called the Sympathizer, which was on hbo. And we were literally. It's probably pretty funny. We were overnighting him. He had scales, timers, thermometers, Chemx pour over stuff. And we were literally on video in real time. I was in a cupping room with a whole bunch of Q Raiders, which are like the sommelier of coffee. And we were tweaking, perfecting individual blends, roast levels. We'd get it, you know, dialed in. We'd all overnighted to him. We'd be on video together, and we'd be tasting the same time with the same. Like, the. The coffee had to be heated. The water. Sorry, had to be heated to 212 degrees for at least X number of minutes. The exact amount by weight of coffee had to be put in the Chemex. The pour over had to be completed in a certain amount of time. It had to steep for four minutes. Like, everything was like, for, like. And he's trying it in Vietnam, and I'm in a cupping room. Like, these giant round tables with people just, like, spinning and drink and sip coffee all day long. They're like coffee geniuses. And we're literally adjusting the blends based on notes that he's providing in real time. He's on the set. He's, like, shooting a movie, and dude makes time to do all this stuff, and then guess what? 12 hours later, the same thing or 24 hours later. We'd ship the stuff over. He'd have the new versions based on tasting us. We'd do it again, and then we do it again, and then we do it again, and, like, you know, that's what you do. He was shooting, you know, Avengers stuff, and we were like, hey, we're doing this partnership with Tate's, and we partnered with Mondelez and Tates, if you don't know Tate's.
- [79:31]
Interviewer
Yeah. Kaz, cookie.
- [79:32]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's killer cookies, right? So we made. We made coffee. We made RTD ready to drink coffee with Tate's. Tates made a cookie. This is really cool. Tate's wanted. Cause they had a. A vanilla latte cookie, and they Wanted our brand for the, for their cookies.
- [79:46]
Interviewer
Oh, wow.
- [79:47]
Craig Dubitsky
And. But here's the best part. And then on the back, like, there's all this stuff and we launched this together and anyway, it was amazing. So we're, we're working on this and we're like, danny, we're doing this thing, man. And you know, he, he knows Tates. Like, he loves Tate.
- [80:00]
Interviewer
Yeah.
- [80:00]
Craig Dubitsky
So we send him all the stuff. He's in the UK filming and like, he shot, you know, he shot videos and social posts and did it. He's like, he's shooting, you know, like these are major, major films.
- [80:10]
Interviewer
Releases. Yeah.
- [80:11]
Craig Dubitsky
And, you know, so I guess to answer your question, you know, when you love it, you find time and he's, he's found time and he's made the time. Because I think this is something. I don't want to speak for him, but, you know, he's, he, he cares about it. He doesn't, you know, he doesn't just do stuff like this. He's not, you know, you don't see him on TV commercials for other products or brands. He doesn't shill, you know, he doesn't, he doesn't. I don't want to say. He doesn't have to because that's kind of snooty sounding, you know, he can do whatever he, he wants. He's. He's particular. That's the better way to put it. He's a discerning guy. And, and like I said, he's, he's, you know, to say he's brilliant is really kind of a ridiculous understatement. So he picks and chooses and coffee is really meaningful. And I think happy means something to him as it does to me. And, you know, we're committed to make it great.
- [80:58]
Interviewer
How did you. How do you think? It's incredible. Incredible how involved he is. And it's also incredible that you don't, you actually don't need to be in the same room for, you know.
- [81:09]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we do, you know, we, we, we get together. I hadn't seen him a little bit in person just because he's been shooting stuff and he's, he's abroad and. But, you know, he comes out to Montclair. I mean, he's, he's, he's amazing. You know, it's really fun when people are surprised. You know, like you're out walking around with him somewhere. It's like, wait, what? Yeah, it's. He's, you know, and he's very approachable
- [81:32]
Interviewer
and he's lovely how did you approach retail with. Oh, first of all, I want to be respectful for your time. I know we're four minutes over. Do you have a.
- [81:39]
Craig Dubitsky
Do you have a. I'm good.
- [81:41]
Interviewer
You're good?
- [81:41]
Craig Dubitsky
I'm good. Yeah, I'm good.
- [81:43]
Interviewer
Cool.
- [81:43]
Craig Dubitsky
But thank you. You're kind.
- [81:45]
Interviewer
How did you think about retail expansion? Because it seemed like even when you first started, you were kind of off the races in terms of expanding store accounts and kind of. Yeah, we weren't really 10,000 stores within six minutes or something like that, so. Yeah.
- [81:57]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah.
- [81:58]
Interviewer
How did you. How did you think about it in the opportunity.
- [82:00]
Craig Dubitsky
Well, it's a fortunate position to be in when there are retailers that are appreciating what you're up to and want to carry your product. And we were fortunate because the product itself was. Is really, really good. Like, to try it is to love it. There's a reason why we have high repeat rates, and it's. The product itself is really good. So that. That certainly helps. But I think it was a combination. In the beginning, we didn't. We didn't say, like, anything about Robert Downey Jr. Like, we would surprise people and show up on calls together, and people would be like, wait, what just happened? Like, wait, what? Like, who's on this call? Or who's in the room? Like, wait, what? You know, we'd either, like, sneak them in. He'd like. I mean, we had this one meeting at Walmart where the meeting had already started, and he just, like, came in. It was like, wait, what? We had another meeting with a retailer on video, and we didn't tell her anything. She didn't know anything about Downey or what we were doing. You know, she. She literally said, well, I'm taking this meeting because the subject line says happy, you know, coffee. And I thought, well, that's an interesting name. And, you know, I. I know you Tubitsky, because, you know, I know these other brands. And the meeting starts at Dany's. In the meeting, I was over video, and she's like, you know, she's a senior person. She has her team with her that are a little, you know, junior to her, and she's just keeping it together. And she goes, so wasn't expecting to start my teams meeting this morning with Robert County Jr. And he's the best. And he goes, you know, that's really amazing. You say that I have this, like, tooth that I just, you know, chipped. And, like, right after this meeting, I have to go get it, you know, fixed. How amazing that we're both having these unexpected mornings together and it was just like the funniest thing and everyone starts cracking up and, you know, it was magical. You know, she was like, well, you know this. I wasn't like, I wasn't expecting this. And the fact that he's approachable, real kind. There's a lot of thoughtfulness behind why and how we're doing, what we're doing, where and how our sourcing takes place. You know the coffee, we source our coffee from 2 to 5 acre farms. They're literally. These farms are less than 1/2 of 1% of all available commercial coffee growers. Like, the coffee is great. So you have a lot of substance to the story. And then you, then you think about Nami and mental health and all the other things that are part and parcel of what we're doing. I mean even this thing is cubed. This whole thing is curbside recyclable. Even the label is a custom substrate. You don't have to take this off. You can recycle this thing. I reuse these. I keep my USB drives in here. I'm hopeful that one day I'll find one with a lot of bitcoin on it. But you know, these things, you can do a lot with them. And again, it was like when you explain all the thinking that's been in play, why we're doing what we're doing and how we're doing it, retailers have been very responsive. So we're in a lot of doors. You know, Walmart at one point had asked us, they said we really like your brand. Do you think you could do art rtd? And I said like any good entrepreneur would. Let me think about it. Yes. And we went from nothing didn't exist to in under 4 months shipping product and getting it on the shelves. And you know, now that RTD has really expanded a lot. In fact, we just opened up the convenience channel about two weeks ago. Sheets took our product, they took five SKUs in and all doors. I think it's about 815 doors they have. But it's our first entrance into convenience. We're expanding with a lot of retailers. You know, we've got product and Walmart, Target, Albertsons, Kroger, Heb. You know, it just keeps going like a lot of major, major doors and obviously Amazon and now TikTok Shop we've launched so you can find it Amazon.com happy go check it out. There's some fun videos actually downing up there too if you, if you go visit.
- [85:31]
Interviewer
How I appreciate that. That's Amazing. How do you think about expanding number of balancing that kind of balancing act of expanding the number of skus?
- [85:41]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah, well, we, we've. We've learned a lot. You know, we've learned a lot in the beginning, in the very beginning, we wanted to do some really esoteric, funky coffees in them. And we were, you know, suggested to us that we sort of go a little bit more mainstream, that a lot of things were a little fringy, were a little too fringy, and they weren't selling so well. So we started out, you know, light, medium, dark coffee, and it turned out break the coffee. Turns out, you know, we know how to make really good coffee. Right. We have two Q graders on our staff. I don't know if you know about Q graders, but if you're a sommelier, you have to be able to discern, I think it's 200 unique attributes or whatever it is you're handed. You know, you swish it around, you spit it out. And you have to be able to, you know, sort of wax with authority about everything that's in that cup or glass, I should say. And if you're a Q grader, letter Q, which is the coffee equivalent, you have to be able to discern over 400 different attributes. There's only about 15 or 1600 in the world. So we have someone on our team from day zero who is one of the first five American Q graders ever, one of the first 300 in the world. And he's, he's brilliant. He's a coffee genius. And now our head of R and D actually went and got Q certified as well. So we have two Q graders. So making sure the coffee's great is important. And we, we then added whole bean coffee. And it turns out whole bean coffee is really taking off because during COVID first of all, people were staying home. People wanted to brew their own stuff and they wanted to grind their own beans. The hardware cost has come down a lot. It used to be a really good machine that would grind beans was much more expensive than it is now. So now it's looking like whole bean is really starting to pick up. We launched with K cups originally. K cups are still very, very important and growing. But we're watching whole bean really start to take off. And there were a lot of people who didn't understand what this cube was. It looks so different for the category that nobody knew what it was. So we started to play around with, with bags. We just launched bags under really pretty looking bags with whole beam, sort of whole beam was bap and cranking on Amazon.com it's going to be launching more retail doors in the next couple of months. And then RTD kept growing. So what we've learned is like test and measure a little bit, but because we're playing at scale, our test market ends up being very big. Um, and we learn, I like to say, we move at the speed of thought. So when it became clear that whole beam was really starting to grow, we're like, well, how fast can we, can we do that? Like let's, let's go. So we move really fast. And what's great about E Commerce is you can launch some things on E Commerce first before they go into retail. So we have another product that we made is a limited edition. I don't know if I have one here. It's say I do have within. It's a blueberry coffee. And this sold out online really fast. It was, it's amazing. Like I literally, you know I'm not a huge coffee drinker, right? I sit here and squeeze the bags, inhale it. It's, it's epic. And this sold out. Well, guess what? It sold out of line really fast because that's how we launched it. It was a limited edition. Well, guess what? It's going to major retail in a, you know, in a very short amount of time. Maybe, maybe when you're listening to this podcast, it'll be there and then we have other new things. So what we're doing is we're moving really fast. Like we made this super esoteric microlot coffee where we literally bought every single bean this guy could grow. And it's super sophisticated, super high end, but we bought it all. And right now that only exists on our website and I'm sure it's going to sell out really, really fast. And it got a super high rating from the coffee rating geniuses@coffeereview.com it got a wildly high score of a 92, which is outrageous, believe it or not. So it'll sell out fast. But the other really amazing thing about that product, apart from there are two guys who, who grew it on this tiny. You know, it's like I think it's a one acre or less than one acre farm in, in Nicaragua. Apart from the care that goes into it, the beans are extra large. So everything about it's from like super funky and esoteric. But the other thing that's amazing about it is we partnered with the mental health Coalition, which is this incredible group started by Kenneth co Cole and he's basically brought together NAMI and all these other incredible mental health organizations. And we're giving 100% of all the proceeds go to Mental Health Coalition. It's not like a portion or the profit. A hundred percent of the proceeds go there. So get it while it's hot, get it while you can. I know you'll be helping some people, but, you know, the way we figure this stuff out is we try, we move fast. People invented fun terms like pivot. That's great. It's not that we're pivoting. We're expanding, growing, trying to be smart. And I used to be a trader in a prior life. It's like you gotta let your winners run and know when to kill your losers. And that keeps you, you know, lean and profitable and moving forward. So we don't stop. We have so much more innovation to come and it's happy products, not happy coffee. And there's, you know, there's just more to come. So it's momentum, you know, and I think more positivity begets more positivity all around. So we're being just positive and focused and executing and smiling a lot. And that stuff is contagious, you know, and retailers want to do more with you. Your product sells, you market, you go on a podcast. I hope everybody listening will give this a try. By the way, I always try to avail myself to everybody, especially entrepreneurs. So if you're listening, you know my cell phone numbers readily memor, you know, easily, easily recalled. It's 917-392-1000. It's a really easy phone number.
- [91:05]
Podcast Host
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- [91:57]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah, you can call me. Well, I love people. Yeah, I love people. People are the best. I've never had anybody ever be anything other than lovely and helpful. And so many people have been so helpful to me. And like, you know, I, I want to be helpful to as many people as I can. If I could be helpful, you know, you let me know. And it's amazing what happens if you open yourself up to other people. People are the best. Plants are great too. Don't get me wrong, coffee beans are great, but like, you know, people are the, are the magic.
- [92:25]
Interviewer
So I agree with you. People are.
- [92:27]
Craig Dubitsky
That's it.
- [92:28]
Interviewer
People are the magic. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [92:30]
Craig Dubitsky
Look how long we've been talking for. We had that first call the other night and it was like, I think it was supposed to be like a 10 minute or something.
- [92:36]
Interviewer
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We ended up talking for 90. It was, it was great. It was great.
- [92:43]
Craig Dubitsky
And you were like, apart from being just like wonderful, kind. You're like, what can I help you with? Is there someone I know that I could be able to like, that's like, that's the whole point, you know, you help somebody, someone else helps you. You make a connection somewhere. I don't mean just like, I have your phone number connection. I mean like, did a real emotional, like, you click again. We're going full circle and more, you know, we have more alike than we have, you know that we are not alike about. Right. We have more similarities and dissimilarities. So if we can tap into that and, you know, turn out really cool products. Yes. Really good ideas. Yes. Really cool relationships. Yes. Helping people to help other people. Yes. Like, check all these boxes. It's great. What can't we do? We're lucky to be alive. Life is pretty frigging awesome.
- [93:27]
Interviewer
For sure. For sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. What's my final question that I asked everyone and this has been so even hearing about? Happy? What's one book that you believe I kind of has inspired you personally and won both of.
- [93:40]
Craig Dubitsky
Oh, my God. Hold on. I'm going to get up and show it to you. Hold on. You're not gonna believe this. You're not gonna believe this. I keep this by my desk. You ready? You're not gonna believe this. You're not gonna believe this. I have to go and show it to you.
- [93:51]
Interviewer
Oh, I love that book. I love that book.
- [93:58]
Craig Dubitsky
Oh, the places you'll go. Amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. I actually, believe it or not, I have A, a digital version of this book on my phone and it's semi animated. It's great. You know, it's really hard to do simple and people use this word, simple like it's a negative term. Goes back to what we were saying. It's not simple, it's magical because it immediately connects because it's devoid of pretense and noise. So to keep things simple is actually quite hard. Google looks simple, right? There's a, just says Google. There's a dialog box and type whatever you want. Looks pretty, pretty easy. What's going on behind the scenes is anything but easy. So, you know, we're called happy. Everything going on behind the scenes is much more evolved than just say, we're called happy. Let's smile a lot. You know, it's, it's hard to do simple. So I love a book like this because it kind of puts things in perspective. If you want, we can talk about Kierkegaard. I can talk to you about Balthazar Gracian, who wrote about the Jesuits and all these great, you know, amazing, you know, aphorisms and things. I love that stuff too. I love philosophy, I love design. I'm looking at a whole bunch of David Byrne books, Arboretum over there, which is really amazing. American Utopia. Incredible. I have shrunken white, the elements of style. But of course I have to also not only have that regular version, but I have the common illustrated version, which is amazing. If you haven't seen that, you should go get it. I mean, I, I love, you know, I, I, I love the simple magic of something like this and I literally keep it next to my desk. So there you go. What a great question. No one's ever asked me that.
- [95:33]
Interviewer
Amazing. Amazing. Well, I love honestly that you picked that book. I read that it's my daughter quite often, so it's just, it's just great.
- [95:40]
Craig Dubitsky
It's, it's, it's great. So, yeah, and there's some great stuff in here, especially for entrepreneurs, by the way, because it talks about, like, you know, there's going to be walls and there's going to be dark days and there's going to be all sorts of obstacles that you face, and it's all part of life and it's, it's, it's great. So, yeah, we're in it, we're in it. We're in it together.
- [95:57]
Interviewer
For sure. For sure. Craig, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for again going over just as you did a few days ago. I really do appreciate it. It's been so great. Getting to know you over these past years.
- [96:07]
Craig Dubitsky
Same, same. I can't wait. I'm going to see you at Expo. I'm sure. And those of you that aren't going to Expo, I'm so sorry. But for those of you who are, just remember, wear sensible shoes. Come by and say hello if you're going to. And don't forget to hydrate, man, you got to, you know, and, and listen, you know, I'm just saying the pro tip, like it's okay to, to, to walk around with a box of Tic Tacs making noise. No one's going to hear it. And people will love that you have a Tic Tac. So share it and use it yourself. Anyway, I'm happy to see everybody there. If you're coming, come by, we'll have some coffee, cold or hot, and we'll schmooze it up and shrink the world a little bit more. It's going to be great.
- [96:46]
Podcast Host
What great Expo West Tips.
- [96:49]
Interviewer
That was. That was fabulous.
- [96:50]
Craig Dubitsky
That was festival shoes, baby, all the way. Yeah.
- [96:53]
Interviewer
I always say make sure you eat lunch. That's like, that's. Well, I know, I know you don't have time for that, but. But the thing is that I feel like there's so much.
- [97:01]
Craig Dubitsky
You're not going to have enough products with protein in it at Expo.
- [97:04]
Interviewer
Well, there's just so many snacks, you know, there's so many snacks and. Yeah. At least with my stomach, it's. It's really easy to go overboard, if you know what I mean. So it's very.
- [97:13]
Craig Dubitsky
It's pacing. Pacing is key.
- [97:14]
Interviewer
Pacing. Maybe that's a better way to say it. Pacing. Pacing.
- [97:17]
Craig Dubitsky
Yeah. Just, just. Yeah, take. You don't have to try everything as soon as you see it.
- [97:21]
Interviewer
Yeah, yeah. But also do try everything.
- [97:24]
Craig Dubitsky
Try, try everything. That's right.
- [97:26]
Interviewer
Great.
- [97:26]
Craig Dubitsky
Wash it down with some happy. This is going to be great. I'll see you in the hall. E. We're in the, you know, the lower level where the magic happens.
- [97:32]
Podcast Host
I love that hall.
- [97:34]
Interviewer
Love it. I cannot wait.
- [97:35]
Craig Dubitsky
Right at the base of the escalator.
- [97:38]
Interviewer
And then we'll also see you at the Consumer VC Rise and Roast on Thursday.
- [97:42]
Craig Dubitsky
Absolutely.
- [97:43]
Interviewer
And we'll definitely be having some happy there. So.
- [97:46]
Craig Dubitsky
Yes, please.
- [97:47]
Interviewer
That'd be great. That'd be great. Craig, thank you so much for this.
- [97:51]
Craig Dubitsky
This is.
- [97:51]
Interviewer
This is fabulous.
- [97:52]
Craig Dubitsky
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
- [97:54]
Interviewer
Congrats on all your success and thanks again.
- [97:57]
Craig Dubitsky
I'm just lucky to be around really brilliant people, so. Like yourself. So thank you. Thank you, thank you. Edit away, by the way, because I know I went on far too long. So thank you for indulging me and letting me have the verbal diarrhea that I'm afflicted with on your podcast. So thank you.
- [98:14]
Interviewer
Amazing. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for your time.